USDA wants to avoid mandatory animal IDs

The USDA is boosting its efforts to get livestock producers signed up in the
National Animal Identification System (NAIS) ahead of mandatory country of
origin labelling (COOL) legislation that becomes effective later this
year.Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer stated that he prefers not to make
NAIS mandatory, but warned it could happen if not enough producers sign up
voluntarily.

â€œWe are doing it on a voluntary basis. We have about a third of the
premises signed up. We've kicked up our cooperative agreements with states and
livestock organisations with a goal of getting them signed up. It seems as
though if we are going to implement COOL you must have an animal ID system
because you need to be able to trace things back and forth.â€

The recently passed farm bill sets a September timeframe for COOL to become
effective.